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Monday, 8 April 2013

‘THE FAILURE OF SWAZI POLITICS’

The leader of one of Swaziland’s leading pro-democracy
organisations has questioned the value of the kingdom’s political parties ahead
of the 40th anniversary of the Royal proclamation that deprived Swazis of many
of their civil rights.

Musa Hlophe, the coordinator of the Swaziland Coalition
of Concerned Civic Organisations, said, ‘The biggest failure of Swazi politics
is that the opposition parties think their sense of injustice at not being able
to access power through the political processes in this country is shared by the
ordinary people. It is not.’

Hlophe said most people in Swaziland wanted ‘a job, a
family, and a sense of hope that things might get better’.

In Swaziland political parties are not allowed to contest
elections and are in effect banned from the kingdom, ruled by King Mswati III,
sub-Saharan Africa’s last absolute monarch.

The People’s United Democratic Movement (PUDEMO), the
best known of the political parties in Swaziland is banned in the kingdom because
the state labels it a ‘terrorist’ organisation.

Hlophe, writing in the Times Sunday newspaper in Swaziland, said on 12 April 1973 King
Sobhuza II declared a state of emergency that has never been openly repealed.

‘He also set up an army, which has now only succeeded in
threatening or harming citizens.

‘Swaziland is now among the sickest, poorest, most
corrupt and unhappiest nations in the world.’

He said ordinary Swazi people, ‘were begging’ for an
alternative to their present lives which are dominated by poverty, hunger,
sickness and death’.

Hlophe, who said he is a supporter of multi-party
democracy for Swaziland, also said the Swazi political parties were irrelevant
to people’s ordinary lives.

‘They only seem to spend their time talking about how
this government is corrupt and illegitimate.

‘They hide behind the slogans of a people’s revolution
and tell us what our problems should be rather than listening to what our
problems really are.

‘They treat us as if we should behave like Russian
peasants from another century rather than proud yet desperate Swazis living and
suffering today.

‘They treat us as if we are a disappointment to them and
their tired political theories.

‘When ordinary people do not fit with theory, it is time
to change the theory, not to blame the people.

‘As idealists, they continue to hold onto theories and
strategies that have never delivered any benefits to ordinary Swazis.’

He wrote, ‘We see activists getting arrested for another
toyi-toyi where they chanted cheap, insulting and pointless slogans that ask
for an end to Tinkhundla [the present system of government] but do we ever see
them stage protests against a beating of one of our sons in a police station or
practically helping a grandmother forced to starve herself in order to feed her
grandchildren?

‘They say multiparty democracy will solve all of our
problems but they don’t tell us what they will do when they are in power.’

He added, ‘The biggest failure of Swazi politics is that
the opposition parties think their sense of injustice at not being able to
access power through the political processes in this country is shared by the
ordinary people. It is not.

‘Most of us simply want a job, a family, and a sense of
hope that things might get better. We the ordinary people grant mandates to
political parties when they have striven to earn them through hard work,
courage and relevance.

‘Political parties do not deserve votes just because they
are parties but because they are relevant to our everyday lives.

‘When they can show how they will make Swaziland better
for most of us, then maybe more of us will take them more seriously.’